While the Rainbow Warrior is sailing the big blue sea on its campaign to preserve deep sea life, we want you to take action yourself
Next week in New York, Greenpeace will attend a meeting of the United Nations Open-ended Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and Law of the Sea (UNICPOLOS), where we will press for a 'time-out' on bottom-trawling on the high seas.
The high sea, in case you don't know, is not just somewhere where pirates hang out and say 'arrrr' a lot, it refers to the international waters, outside a nation's Exclusive Economic Zone. More than 1,000 marine scientists from 60 countries have already signed a public statement calling for this moratorium, so that humankind can work out how to protect deep sea life.
So how can you get involved? By signing the E-Alert Action! All the names and comments posted will be presented to the Co-Chairs of UNICPOLOS next week in York, at a reception hosted by non-governmental organisations, including Greenpeace.
Bottom trawling has to be the most destructive form of fishing.
Like the land, when you cut all the trees down, you risk higher levels of pollution.
What do the authorities know about the repercussions of stripping the sea of it's vegetation. The sea absorbs most of the carbon in the word, without it's vegetation it is only common sense that the carbon absorbtion will slow down or cease.
Posted by: Mark Lawson at July 28, 2004 10:05 AM
Before we distroy something we don't know much about yet don't understand the function of this amazing aspect of our planet, stop the deep sea fishing.
I remember working on a prawn trawler out of Dampier, W.A. twenty five years ago. every hour we had to bring in the shallow water botom nets and sort out the catch. To me, it seemed so ruthless to trawl the bottom, the ammount of unwanted dead fish and other marine life we threw back overboard was astoundingly wasteful. Goodness knows how many fish eggs and juvenile fish we destroyed on the bottom as our nets dragged across the mud and sand. I left feeling subdued and ashamed to have taken part in this wholesale raping of the ocean and since then have never eaten prawns. Bottom fishing deep ocean floors is so typical of an industry that has historically shown little regard for ocean life. This work by Greenpeace is vital for all our futures.
Posted by: martin wyness at June 8, 2004 08:10 PM
That was easy! I signed! Thanks for the link Dave :)
